Of a Feather

by Dayna Lorentz

  The bell rings.

  It’s like being shaken awake. I look up from my mandala. Everyone else is already packing up.

  Jamie’s mandala is a bull’s-eye of pinks and yellows. Jaxon drew this incredible green and purple pattern of diamonds swirling out from a sunburst of red.

  I look back at my picture. I’ve drawn a monster. Not Rufus, but some terrible raging nightmare.

  Am I that nightmare?

  I bring the picture over to Ms. Whipple. “What does this mean?”

  She looks at my drawing. “I don’t know,” she says, handing it back to me. “But it seems pretty intense.”

  The yellow eyes draw me in, the brown whirlpools around. “It’s so angry,” I mumble.

  She peeks over the top of the paper.

  “It’s okay to be angry,” she says. “Anger is something everyone feels. But sometimes it doesn’t feel very safe to be angry. A mandala is a safe place for you to put your anger.”

  I want to tell her I said the drawing is angry, not me, but then I stop because her words are humming inside me, as if answering a call. Everything she said is true and right, but this anger feels so much bigger than any piece of paper can hold. “Oh,” I say.

  “Here,” she says, holding out another page and a new box of colored pencils. “Take this home. See how you’re feeling tonight.”

  I take the paper and pencils. It feels like I’ve been dropped out of a tree.

  Jamie’s eyes bug out when she sees me. “What happened? Your face is, like, whoa.”

  “Do you think I’m angry?”

  Now Jamie’s confused. “At me?”

  “No—just, like, in general?”

  Jaxon scrapes a long sliver from his wood with his pen. “I’m angry.”

  Jamie and I both look at him like he’s lying. Jaxon is the calmest and least angry person on earth.

  “I am,” he says. “My parents had me see the school counselor when they were getting divorced. It took me a while to get there, but I realized I was mad at them. For getting divorced.”

  “You told your parents you were mad at them?” Jamie’s voice is full of awe and wonder, like the concept of being mad at a parent had never occurred to her.

  Then again, I’m also kind of like, Wait, you can be mad at your parents for getting divorced?

  “Yeah,” Jaxon says, sliding the pen along the deep groove. “It was hard. But afterward, my parents kind of took their fighting someplace else. They tried to explain things to me, like why they were getting a divorce and how they still loved me.”

  Jamie’s jaw dangles. I peek at my mandala.

  “I’m still angry,” he says, scraping another piece. “But it helped to say it.”

  “Is everybody angry?” Jamie asks.

  Jaxon shrugs. “Maybe?”

  “I’m not angry,” Jamie says.

  “Maybe you are and you don’t know it,” I say, thinking back to what she said about the grandmother being the one who should die in Dicey’s Song. I slip the mandala into my backpack. “Maybe the whole world is actually powered by secret rage.”

  Jamie frowns. “I hope that’s not true.”

  Jaxon flashes his half smile. “Me too.”

  I dare to grab both their hands. “Me three.”

  But during the whole bus ride home, all I can do is stare at the mandala. What am I so angry about? The buzz answers, Alone. But I’m not alone—I have Jaxon and Jamie and Aunt Bea and Rufus—and then I remember that I don’t “have” Rufus, that he has to leave me and go back to the wild. That I don’t have Aunt Bea—that Mom is doing better and soon I’ll be leaving everything, though who knows what “better” even means or how long it’s going to last this time. And then this guilt for even thinking such a thing, for admitting—even just in my own head—that Mom will fall apart again, floods my lungs and I’m under water, sinking down, down, and by the time the bus stops at the end of my driveway, all I want is to see Rufus, so I stumble through the yard to his aviary, where he’s still snoozing, and I collapse through the entry and onto the floor among the feathers and whitewash and just start to cry.

  The tears come and they rain down, soaking my shirt.

  18

  Rufus

  The Brown Frizz has come into my nest and appears to be suffering from some fit. She is curled in on herself like a hedgehog and shuddering. Every few heartbeats, she heaves in this huge breath, like she’s bobbing up from a deep dive under water. Very odd.

  I shall investigate.

  I swoop down from my favorite high perch to my mute rock, which is the closest perch to her.

  “You have woken me,” I begin. “What is wrong with you?”

  The Brown Frizz tips her head up and peers at me through the thicket of her head fur. The whites of her eyes are cracked with red lines. She burbles something from her beakless maw. Great Beak—is the Brown Frizz dying?

  “You must go and talk to the Gray Tail,” I squawk. “She is very good at fixing things. Perhaps also the small creature with the black head fur. She also seemed rather good with injuries.”

  The Brown Frizz grumbles softly and curls her head back into her knees.

  This is more serious than I thought. It appears the Brown Frizz is giving in to death.

  Father said something about this. He had a hatchmate who broke a blood feather. The bird just couldn’t recover. Has the Brown Frizz broken some vital part of herself? I bob my head, listen for sounds of injury, check her over for wounds. No—the Brown Frizz is intact.

  An internal injury. Mother was always going on about that. First, get off that skinny twig! You’ll fall from the tree and get an internal injury! First was like that. She’d hop onto any branch, no matter how far from the nest, just to make me feel like a dud.

  If the Brown Frizz is suffering from an internal injury—to be honest, I really have no idea what that means, but Mother seemed positive that it was the first flap on the flight to death—she must get help. Intervention is necessary.

  I adjust my feet on the perch and judge the distance, and with one brief flap and a hop, I land on her knee.

  “Brown Frizz!” I screech directly at her head fur. “You may be suffering from an internal injury.” No need to upset her further with a clear diagnosis. “You must—I repeat, must—go and get help.”

  The Brown Frizz again tips her head up and sneaks a glance at me through her fur.

  “Seriously,” I squawk. “Pick up your little tail-less bottom and get help.”

  The Brown Frizz lifts her head, and I see that her eyes have leaked all over her hairless cheeks. The skin around the eyes is pinkish and the eyes themselves show red still pulsing through cracks in their whites. What strange and wondrous eyes these furless creatures have.

  Most bizarre is the fact that she’s wearing her Good Feelings face.

  The Brown Frizz grumbles something and rubs the feathers on my foot with her little wing-toes.

  “That tickles,” I twitter, and nibble her wing-toes with my beak.

  The Brown Frizz grumbles again, and the Good Feelings face spreads all the way to her eyes.

  Perhaps the furless creature does not have an internal injury? Perhaps she is just seriously fluffed? The Brown Frizz tickles my foot feathers again and I nibble at her and she chortles like this is the most wonderful thing. She certainly doesn’t seem midflight to death. The Brown Frizz lifts her little paw and runs her wing-toes down my chest feathers. I rouse at her touch—no one since Mother has groomed my feathers. But then again, the Brown Frizz wants to be family. Maybe this is part of the ritual?

  “All right, Brown Frizz,” I chirp. “You may preen my feathers, but do be careful about the alignment of the barbs.” I’m rather particular about my barbs.

  The Brown Frizz continues to run her silly wing-toes over my feathers and coo softly. Clearly, she is no longer suffering from whatever had previously ailed her, meaning she had certainly only gotten herself seriously fluffed. Furless creatures do have a dramatic
way of getting fluffed, what with the leaky eyes and the shuddering and gasping like a fish dropped in the forest.

  “Hey, Red,” I squawk loudly. “Look at this! I think the Brown Frizz and I have achieved this partnership you keep screeching about.”

  Red flaps to the opening in the wall of her nest that looks into mine. She stares down her beak at us, weighing us like prey. “It certainly is an improvement.” She glances at the yard and the human nest. “You still can’t hunt, though.”

  She had to bring that up.

  “But you said the Brown Frizz will teach me,” I squawk back. “That’s the whole partnership thing.”

  Red turns her yellow eyes back onto me. “One kill at a time, Hatchling.”

  The Brown Frizz slides her naked wing-toes into her big paw and I hop from her knee onto the paw, which is clearly her favorite way for me to perch and the way that gets me the most mouse bits per visit.

  “On that thought, where is the mouse?” I squawk, because I haven’t eaten since sunup and things are getting growly in the gizzard.

  The Brown Frizz clearly understands Owlish, because she walks directly toward the human nest, begins barking loudly, and then the Gray Tail comes out bearing a pile of mice.

  More owls should look into this partnership business, I think, gobbling down the first scrap she offers. But then I think of First and all her showing off and teasing, and it’s clear that certain owls would not make much of a partner for these poor furless creatures. First would have torn the head fur right off the Brown Frizz seeing her so vulnerable and fluffed earlier. No, it is truly only the Absolute Worst Owls in All of Owldom who are fit partners for furless creatures, because only the Absolute Worst Owls in All of Owldom would be desperate enough to discover how nice it is to have a thing like a partner. Only the Absolute Worst Owls would fall so low as to uncover the treasure of friendship.

  When the Brown Frizz puts me on the post and whistles, I fly, silent and strong, barely riffling the blades of grass, and land on her paw. Her face is brighter than the moon on a clear night.

  19

  Reenie

  “You’re doing it again.” Jaxon taps my laptop’s keyboard.

  The librarian has given us our library period to work on our Vermont projects. Instead of typing up my brief history of falconry, I’m doodling owls. But how can I not? Rufus flew to me from all the way across the yard on the creance. Aunt Bea can’t believe how far he’s come, how much he trusts me. But Rufus and I have come to an understanding: we need each other. Watching him lift off from the perch, spread his wings wide, and glide silently, yellow eyes glued on mine, then flapping once, twice, and swooping up onto my fist—it’s like seeing a part of me come back to myself.

  In class, Mr. Brown calls for people’s attention. “You should have all completed your research at this point and be well on your way to putting that research into your essays as we discussed earlier this week. I want everyone to get into their groups and share what they’ve written so far. Start talking about transforming your individual pieces into your group presentation.”

  The room rumbles with the thunderous sound of desks being dragged into new formations. Jamie, Jaxon, and I arrange ourselves into a tight knot.

  “I’ve already finished my essay on the negative impacts of hunting,” Jamie says. “But I also found all this stuff on the economic benefits to rural communities. I didn’t know if that was okay—I mean, I don’t want to step on your toes, Jax.” She slides a folder of paper toward Jaxon.

  “Step all over them,” he says.

  A cold sweat prickles out beneath my shirt. She already has a folder of research? Of extra research?

  “I was thinking for the presentation that maybe I could do some drawings,” Jaxon says, pulling out a sketchbook. He’s already done three amazing sketches of a deer, men up in a deer blind, and a compound bow.

  “Have you finished your essay?” Jamie asks, smiling, blissfully unaware that I am definitely the weakest link in our chain.

  I have not. I still have to do the interview part of the assignment to transition from the history of falconry to what it is today. “It’ll be done in time.”

  Jamie’s smile falters. “But you’ve started, right?”

  “Definitely,” I lie.

  Jaxon’s eyebrows launch into the fringe of his hair.

  “I’m sorry—Rufus has just been keeping me so busy.”

  “I thought he was better. You haven’t released him?” Jaxon asks.

  “He’s getting better,” I say. “He’s not one hundred percent.”

  “The presentation is in a week,” Jamie says, eyes wide.

  “It’ll be done,” I promise. Geez, they’re touchy about this project.

  We spend the rest of the period working in silence on our individual essays, some of us starting from a blank page.

  * * *

  When Aunt Bea gets home, I am ready with my questions. Some of them we just skim over—how did you get into falconry, what stuff do you need to practice falconry today—as we’ve already covered that ground.

  “Is falconry in Vermont different than other places in America?”

  Aunt Bea nods. “I’ve met falconers from other places and they all offer me condolences. Vermont’s not a great place for falconry. Too many people, not enough open land.”

  I put my pen down. “Jaxon said the same thing about deer hunting. His dad’s always griping about there being too little ground to hunt.”

  “It’s the fight between nature and civilization that humans have been fighting on this land for centuries. You know one hundred and forty years ago, parts of Vermont were eighty percent deforested? It was all cut for timber and sheep meadow. Now we have residential developments and strip malls fighting with farmers and conservationists for land. Sometimes the balance shifts toward one group, then toward another. Unfortunately, falconers are not a loud voice in that fight.”

  I begin doodling. “I wish everyone would just leave things the way they are, stop making parking lots and garbage piles and just let the animals and trees live.”

  Aunt Bea smiles, huffs a little laugh. “It can’t be all one or the other. But things always change. That, too, is natural.” She gets up and grabs a pot to start dinner. “I heard from the social worker today.” I stop doodling. “Your mom is doing well.”

  “Yeah.” She has to bring this up? But what’s funny is, the buzz doesn’t whisper anything. I feel sad. I feel scared. But that’s it.

  Aunt Bea glances over at me. “You know that even if you go home with your mom, you can still come visit me, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, chin on the tabletop.

  She nudges my elbow. “Red would miss you if you didn’t.”

  A laugh escapes my lips. “What about Rufus?”

  “You and Rufus are both going to have to fly free of me soon. But that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

  I lean my head back against the chair. Is it? Mom has recovered other times. She would come to Gram’s and hug me and we’d be fine for a while, but it never lasted. I don’t blame Mom—I’ve seen how hard she fights the sadness when she can, seen the balance shift to her side. But the sadness is bigger than Mom and me put together.

  What if I can have a voice in this fight—a choice? “What if I want to stay?” The words escape my lips before I really understand what I’ve said.

  Aunt Bea gets her flustered face. “Stay? Here?” She picks up my pen, rolls it between her fingers. “Well, of course. I mean, as long as you need to, like I said before. But—Reenie, I—”

  I stop her before she can say anything else. “It’s okay. I get it.” None of us have any choices, not with the state involved.

  “But what if it doesn’t work out?” I ask. Her face crumples, her wrinkles getting wrinkles. I don’t want to upset her more, especially over a question I know has no answer. “I mean with Rufus. What if his wing doesn’t heal completely?”

  The switch over to the topic of Rufus seems to
calm Aunt Bea, as I’d guessed it would. “Then I petition the falconry school and the state to let me keep him as an education bird.”

  “Wait.” I am all eyes and ears on her. “That’s an option?”

  Aunt Bea shrugs. “Either that or see if the natural science center will take him. If not either of those, then he’ll have to be put down.”

  My heart rate drops from full-speed excitement to heart-stalled dread. “Put down?”

  Aunt Bea rumples my hair. “That’s a slim possibility. I think he’s going to be ready to go back home.

  “Speaking of which,” she says, “we have to start getting him hunting.”

  “But he can’t fly free yet,” I say. “He might fly off and—”

  “Whoa, now,” Aunt Bea says, smiling. “You train a bird to hunt with you in stages, same way we manned him for the hunt.”

  My heart drops back into my chest. “Right,” I say. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Aunt Bea says, smirking. “I’ll get some things together.”

  “Okay,” I say, but my mind is stuck on the fact that there is at least a chance—a possibility, the merest sliver of a prospect—that Rufus could stay.

  20

  Rufus

  The Brown Frizz appears at my nest but does not pick open the web and come inside.

  Strange.

  Instead, she kneels down, pushes open a space in the web, and pokes something inside.

  Even more strange.

  The something rolls like an egg. Is it an egg? I stretch my wings and drop beside the egg. I snatch at it with a claw. It’s hard. My talons slip over it and it hops away, unscathed. The audacity of this egg—scampering off from a great horned owl.

  YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME, EGG!

  I am all talons after this egg. It hops and scrambles, but I am fast and cunning and—nope. Got away again.

  DIE, EGG!

  I pierce it with a claw—nothing.

  “Honestly, Owl, did your mother teach you nothing?” Red is glaring down from her perch near the opening.